Switched to AT&T a week ago now thinking of coming back to Sprint

[mike0218]

First I'd like to thank everyone on here for such amazing information. I wish I would have found this place a long tume ago or at least weeks ago when mulling over switching to AT&T! I stumbled across here yesterday afternoon and have learned so much! Thank you!

 

I had been a Sprint customer for about 8 years and about 7 days ago switched to AT&T after going back and forth for weeks. I've always loved my service from Sprint, the only reason I switched was hearing how much "insanely" and "noticeably" faster they are. So, I figured me and my wife would give them a shot. We were using note 3's with Sprint and now Note 5's with AT&T and do not see much difference in service. I never disliked Sprint, yeah a few dropped calls and a few more often driving thru Ohio to Canton to see family. I always blamed to Note 3 more than I did Sprint. We live a little north of Pittsburgh and I have traveled some in the last few days to other cities and can't say I'm happy I left Sprint for this "noticeable AT&T speed difference" that I'm not really feeling. Being withing our 14 day window we're really considering coming back and hopefully getting our plan back since we weren't out of contract til Oct (we jumped early since my note 3 broke and I was itching to try the note 5). We left unlimited everything for a 15gb shared plan... Now I sit here missing Sprint and wondering what the right move is... Any insights would be greatly appreciated!!!

[bkco14]

If sprint worked for you, why did you switch? 3mbs vs 30mbps is a big speed difference, but as long as the Ping is low, you won't tell the difference on a smartphone. (I just used that as an example of an insanely difference in speed). Heck, even 1mbps will open up all apps just about as fast as a 30mbps network.

 

I have even gone through that a little bit as we have recently switched carriers, because there are areas where our carrier and sprint were the same, but unfortunately there are many places sprint just didn't work. You have to choose the right network for your needs. Looks like there really wasn't a problem with Sprint for you and that is why you are regretting it.

[Yuhfhrh]

If they both work the same for you, choose whichever is cheapest. If they're about the same cost, I'd lean towards not supporting the Death Star.

[tybo31316]

Using note 3s is the a problem also being that they are single band LTE devices.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[mike0218]

Well... I made the switch because the rest of my family has AT&T and I've noticed being around them that some of their apps would open or run a little quicker. Did what I thought was my due diligence online (how I never found this forum is surprising to me now) and asked around a good bit (nowhere that had the knowledge base that I have found here) and got what I now assume is the answer based upon good advertising?

 

You are correct in that there wasn't really a problem with Sprint. My wife was annoyed at the dropped calls when we first got the Note 3, but it got better. I brought her over from Verizon. So I think she thought maybe AT&T would be better and now that she's dropped calls daily since we switched, she's the one who brought up going back before I did...

[payturr]

You'd be better off going back to Sprint and getting Note 5s because triband, carrier aggregation, and all that Sprint-y goodness ;-)

[Ascertion]

Funny story, I did the same awhile back.  I got onto my parents plan when I was 16 and I'm now a part of their ED 1500, which is economically the best priced plan for 6 lines.  Anyways, I had a promotional plan through my employer that had unlimited data access on AT&T and after just a few days, I missed being on Sprint.  AT&T locks their phones down hard and I didn't really like their business practices.  The performance was good, but they had some dead spots where Sprint was actually better.  And if I ever left my employer, I'd have lost the unlimited data portion.

 

Overall, Sprint may be slow in some areas, but as long as I have a connection, I'm happy.  I'd rather always be available for texts/calls. At a friend's house, he gets missed calls, repeated texts, and unusable data on AT&T. Meanwhile, my Sprint 3G (soon to be 4G, per permit) works flawlessly in his house with a stable 2Mbps data connection and calls are clear.  Not to mention, this place has a lot of the planned upgrades and discussion, which is something I'd miss dearly if I left Sprint.  I ported my line back within a week.

[bgguy]

Using note 3s is the a problem also being that they are single band LTE devices.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

 

Looking at Pittsburgh it would be highly advantageous to see the increased speed of a Note 5 on Sprint's network with the Spark availability.

[S4GRU]

As an AT&T customer, I can tell you in my travels, about 1/3 of where I go AT&T is faster than Sprint, in 1/3 they are about the same, and in the last third Sprint is faster. And the places where Sprint is faster than AT&T grows every day.

 

Unless you live in one of those places where Sprint doesn't meet your needs, I would stick with Sprint. If Sprint offered service where I live, I wouldn't use ATT at all.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[Flompholph]

Not sure if you saw the

Pittsburgh market thread there is also a premier level map with user reported data.

 

You should have a triband device now in Pittsburgh lots of band 26/band 41. Just remember to look for a good rf performer. It seems the wife would rather a device that stays connected longer than a device that is extra fast. I heard the nexus line is the best. By I am fine with the note 4 and I hear the note 5 is a little better with rf than the note 4. 

 

If you spend time in Cranberry the speeds can be in the 30Mbps range. I have not been to Monaca in a very long time. So you would know better if there was lte. Looking at the rootmetrics map AT&T is pretty good in your area very hard decision I would chose Sprint only because of the amount of data you get. Speeds should be similar now that sprint has lte live in the area.

[mike0218]

I really appreciate everyone's thoughts! Very helpful insights!

 

I do get out to Cranberry at times (Costco Cranberry and Costco Robinson carry different things we use lol), spend a Lil more time up in Robinson. We did have LTE on the note 3s in Beaver County. Thanks for the link to the Pittsburgh thread!

 

I do some traveling as well and hearing the 1/3 of the time att v. Sprint experience you see was great to hear!

[joshnys8913]

Go with whatever carrier is BEST for YOUR needs and price. 

[WiWavelength]

Go with whatever carrier is BEST for YOUR needs and price. 

 

Just not VZW, AT&T, or T-Mobile, which are all worse corporate citizens than Sprint.

 

AJ

[NEBRASKACHERS]

The note 3 not only had one LTE channel, but even though it has 800 mhz for voice it doesn't work right so Sprint only allowed the 1900 voice to work. With the note 5 you now have the 800 voice channel back and sprint spark for Lte. It should be a noticeable difference in talk and data

[mittenmitten]

I switched to AT&T GoPhone from Sprint to test their full-fledged speeds, and my results were just like yours; the same or worse than Sprint. I don't know if it's the fact that AT&T hasn't upgraded their equipment, they're oversold here, or Sprint is just catching up, but I was pretty disappointed after trying them. I'm back on Sprint now

[kct1975]

Just my personal experience...

 

I have been a Nextel-Sprint customer since 2006, and I have always had pretty good service.

 

Working at the company I currently work for in NoVA, from 2009 until about 2011, I had a company owned Blackberry on AT&T, and the service was decent at first.

However, around the time that the company went to BYOD, in 2011, I noticed that both the data and voice services seemed to get worse and worse. Since the BYOD policy, I now use my personal device, on the Sprint network, and have no problems.

 

Also, my other recent experience with AT&T is that my boss has an iPhone on AT&T. When she works remote from her home in Maryland, frequently it is really difficult to hear her or understand her, because her phone keeps cutting-in-and-out. Also sometimes her phone drops calls altogether.

 

My point is that in my personal experience, it seems to me that while AT&T had a fairly good network in the DC/VA/MD area, the network has degraded, and AT&T has not really done anything to increase capacity or performance.

[mike0218]

I think we're pretty set on going back.  In the last few days I was traveling and did not see a difference in data in Phoenix, San Jose, DC, Tampa and of course now home here in Pittsburgh.  I did however notice a degradation in call quality compared to what I've been used to with Sprint.  More scratchy conversations talking to my wife or even friends in other cities who I never had trouble with.   Wife just drops calls in different areas.

[S4GRU]

I really dislike voice on AT&T. Half the time it's passable, but the other half it's awful. All three other providers are far superior on voice than AT&T. I'm sure eventually I will hear HD voice on AT&T. But I haven't had one call on it yet.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

[cortney]

I really dislike voice on AT&T. Half the time it's passable, but the other half it's awful. All three other providers are far superior on voice than AT&T. I'm sure eventually I will hear HD voice on AT&T. But I haven't had one call on it yet.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

 

All 3? Try T-Mobile's 2G or WiFi calling on a weak signal. I also can't agree with Verizon that much; it's usually awful. I've only noticed it being okay on certain smartphones and accessories. Likewise to that AT&T point, I've also yet to hear of anyone personally who's made a HD call on Verizon. I guess that's a treat for certain city-folk for now. 

 

AT&T sounds slightly muffled on certain phones, but okay on others, so it's been more phone-dependent in my experience. It isn't that good though. I don't have constant trouble understanding people like I did on Verizon. 

 

Sprint, and even T-Mobile have that superior voice quality that should simply be standard. It's obviously not a concern of the big two until practically next year at this point (although there are rumors about AT&T doing things by late fall). 

[Fraydog]

Most people on Verizon have not enabled VoLTE. The current stats have 4 million VoLTE customers out of 100 million postpaid customers. Not exactly a huge number.

 

T-Mobile seemed to have the best voice quality when they were 23.85 Kbps on VoLTE but they dialed that back to 12.65 Kbps.

 

AT&T voice is hit and miss, lots of areas with AMR-NB full rate are good but lots don't have that because spectrum and all that noise.

 

I have had very few voice conversations with Sprint customers because there are hardly any around me. The few I have had seem to be similar to what I got off T-Mobile UMTS HD Voice, which is the same bit rate as what they have VoLTE at now.

[DanielB]

I really dislike voice on AT&T. Half the time it's passable, but the other half it's awful. All three other providers are far superior on voice than AT&T. I'm sure eventually I will hear HD voice on AT&T. But I haven't had one call on it yet.

 

Using Nexus 6 on Tapatalk

 

I have to concur. Was talking to my brother this morning - I on a landline and he on an AT&T iPhone. He's in Chicago for work right now. Couldn't hear a thing half the time! Cut in and out constantly. TERRIBLE!

[gusherb]

I have to concur. Was talking to my brother this morning - I on a landline and he on an AT&T iPhone. He's in Chicago for work right now. Couldn't hear a thing half the time! Cut in and out constantly. TERRIBLE!

That's not the norm for AT&T in the Chicago area. For me voice quality on AT&T is roughly on par with voice quality for sprint. Though, ever since I switched to them I don't really get anyone asking me to repeat myself as often as I did with sprint, or vice versa. Most of the time their network is full rate but sometimes it switches to AMR 5.9. Sprint most of the time had robotic sounds during calls.

 

When I tried Verizon for a couple weeks the voice quality seemed ok at first, until I tried to have a conversation in the car at highway speeds, then even with the volume all the way up I couldn't understand. Using SNR as an analogy comes to mind here... The poor quality was understandable In a quiet room but once there was a lot of interfering noise it became very hard to hear.

[Josh]

My family got switched from nextel/sprint (who we had since my dad's first smartphone) to Cingular than At&t while I was in college... and the corporate practices of the deathstar are atrocious!   I was accused of roaming in Canada while near lake Erie during the winter and got $130-$150 overages every month! I called and tried to explain that I had never been to canada and they accused me of lying, refusing to remove the charges.  I switched after swallowing a few months of $200+ bills on a flip phone (in college, that was a LOT), and came back to sprint who has treated me quite well.  Any issues I've had are handled quickly, and although the service has a smaller overall footprint in my area, it's adequate enough for my needs and I am hoping once they expand coverage it will be great here.  

 

My family has stayed on At&t because my dad travels internationally and originally it was the best option for international roaming b/c they were GSM phones.  At&t's voice quality has been steadily decreasing over the recent years, and when NV was going on, we all assumed it was always my phone that was the culprit for the dropped calls and dead silence.  But now I know that my phone calls sound great if I call a sprint customer, ok if I call verizon, and garbled when I call my family on At&t.   

 

I'm in the north pittsburgh area as well, so I know the areas and some people will not be ok with the amount of 3G only areas north of the city... but if you happen to live & work in areas that have LTE, the service is great and the 3G is acceptable/useable for occasional trips into the more rural areas.  

 

Of course do not let this persuade you, it's just my personal experience, but as we say in economics "people vote with their feet" meaning if a company fails to deliver what the customers want, they will leave.  Do what is best for you.

[darickster09]

If they both work the same for you, choose whichever is cheapest. If they're about the same cost, I'd lean towards not supporting the Death Star.

 

could just go back to the stone age and the land of the Flinstones and use a Shell as your phone!  haha.   "Yabba, Dabba Do!!!!"

 

just kidding.  wonder what a smartphone would of looked like back then?  haha.  They probably had some killer apps along with the best LTE of their time!  haha.  Wonder which carrier they used back then?  lol.

 

I cant even start to come up with names for companies using flintstones meme's.  lol.  

 

But really I would say if sprint and AT&T work very similar at your home or wherever you use your phone the most, go with either A. the cheaper of the 2, or B. if you use alot of data go with Sprint considering they still dont limit your data if you have a plan with unlimited data...

 

First I'd like to thank everyone on here for such amazing information. I wish I would have found this place a long tume ago or at least weeks ago when mulling over switching to AT&T! I stumbled across here yesterday afternoon and have learned so much! Thank you!

 

I had been a Sprint customer for about 8 years and about 7 days ago switched to AT&T after going back and forth for weeks. I've always loved my service from Sprint, the only reason I switched was hearing how much "insanely" and "noticeably" faster they are. So, I figured me and my wife would give them a shot. We were using note 3's with Sprint and now Note 5's with AT&T and do not see much difference in service. I never disliked Sprint, yeah a few dropped calls and a few more often driving thru Ohio to Canton to see family. I always blamed to Note 3 more than I did Sprint. We live a little north of Pittsburgh and I have traveled some in the last few days to other cities and can't say I'm happy I left Sprint for this "noticeable AT&T speed difference" that I'm not really feeling. Being withing our 14 day window we're really considering coming back and hopefully getting our plan back since we weren't out of contract til Oct (we jumped early since my note 3 broke and I was itching to try the note 5). We left unlimited everything for a 15gb shared plan... Now I sit here missing Sprint and wondering what the right move is... Any insights would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

But really I would say if sprint and AT&T work very similar at your home or wherever you use your phone the most, go with either A. the cheaper of the 2, or B. if you use alot of data go with Sprint considering they still dont limit your data if you have a plan with unlimited data...

 

If you really enjoy the site consider becoming a paid sponsor of the site.  You get quite a bit more information for a one time donation to S4GRU and I will say many times than not its well worth what you pay for it!  Especially when trying to find that rogue tower that your phone may or may not be connecting to.  

 

Might I also suggest that you check out SignalCheck (the lite version will allow you to test out the app, but if you are really into technical stuff and you just like to keep track of your towers near you that you are connecting to just for the heck of it, or for figuring out if the problem is a sprint tower or your phone then the pro version is well worth purchasing!)  Mike can help you out with that one.  If i knew how to tag him i would.

 

Well best of luck to you with your phone shenanigans!  haha.

[mike0218]

Made the switch back friday night.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts!!!